Strawberry Lust and Making Eight Hours

It is strawberry season and I am hoping that this weekend, between the graduation open houses, baseball games and grocery shopping, we can wedge in a little berry picking. I am craving Strawberry Shortcake something fierce......please tell me I can still buy rhubarb someplace so that at least one Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp can make an appearance. These things are important rites of passage that my (ahem!) sons need to experience. Its all for them.

Also, strawberry basil water, strawberry ice cream, strawberry cream cheese milk shakes, and our traditional strawberry freezer jam. Yes to the yes. Please, lets pick strawberries! Must make time.

Pom is really trying hard to potty train, although he has instructed us to not tell anyone. He has quite a socially aware personality. I bought him a potty story book for his recent birthday which gets read at least once a day and is much labored over in private corners of the house to boot. He is very bent on the whole process. The trick is, that as of now, he has no personal initiative physically. He doesn't seem to notice when he needs to go....ever. He'll be perfectly potty trained if only I will devote myself to setting timers and being always free when they go off so that I can take him to the bathroom at the drop of a hat. If I do the work, he's potty trained. Having a little trouble getting over the hump.

We are out of school for the summer, minus our ever-present math studies (A is teaching) and some reading instruction. Here it is tempting to throw all focus out the window and do crazy things like spend all day organizing the game cupboard and vaccuuming out the pantry, and then drive a bajillion miles up to a farm to pick up raw milk. Not that we won't do that.....because we will....but I need to consciously remember to pay attention to doing the eventy kinds of things we mean to do during this beautiful time of year (Statue of Liberty!) and also remember to give the boys my real, look-you-in-the-eyes-attention, a few mama projects and adventures are in order. It might be a good idea to actually try to use the reading log from the library for The Summer Reading Program too. Am terrible at logs.

The honeysuckle is blooming...its dripping all over the sidelines of the baseball practice fields and creeping up the highway walls in a fervent froth of scented frivolity. It smells amazzzzzing! Tonight I braved the mosquitoes as Ru finished up catching practice with his coaches to snip a handful for carrying home in the cupholder, tucked in a water bottle. I am putting it on my nightstand as a midsummer sleep tonic.

Working on the whole concept of getting eight hours of sleep lately. Its my latest fitness goal. I am exercising regularly, with an emphasis on strength training and flexibility, eating super clean and researching supplementation and have managed to conquer hydration! I cannot believe that I am smoothly managing to get all my daily water chugged down, but even better.....its becoming pleasant, needed even....and I think I can tell that it impacts my physical self and my emotional happiness. So strange, this morphing to become the person you mean to be. So, on to my next goal, a goal I couldn't have even had very easily in the I-always-have-a-baby stage of my life. Sleeping. I sleep easily, no insomnia unless I'm whipped into an argument right at bedtime, and I am able to go to sleep quickly and I am a very sound sleeper (although easily wakened by my children). This all bodes well. I am aiming at 8 hours. I am hovering at 6 and change. I have a sleep buddy to text at bedtime so that we remind each other to go to sleep, and I have my FitBit all charged up again so that I can consciously monitor how many hours I am getting. Lets do this!